Am I the only one that hates the idea of a knuckleballer out of the pen? Perhaps I've been permanently scarred by Wake and his various roles over the years, but I find their inconsistencies are only easy to handle in a spot starter role.
Leveraging the Knuckleballer
- Thread starter Adrian's Dome
- Start date
At least having Vazquez and Hannigan as the regular catchers mitigates the usual defensive challenges presented by a knuckler out of the pen...Adrian's Dome said:
Adrian's Dome said:
There was never a more infuriating pitcher to watch start-to-start than Wakefield. At the end of the year he'd typically end up with around a league average numbers, but it was always a ride getting there.
For what its worth, Wake was pretty decent as a reliever - 3.73 ERA over 313 IP. Not bad for a knuckler, especially considering the environment.
I'm sure you're not the only one, but I'm of the opposite opinion. I would think their inconsistencies would be easier to manage in a bullpen role. When a starter doesn't have it and has to be pulled early, it's a pretty big deal. Either the long reliever needs to have his stuff or most/all of the relievers are called into service. If a reliever doesn't have it, pulling him quickly has much less impact on the game and the bullpen as a whole.Adrian's Dome said:
Also, since a knuckler is a feel pitch, it seems that regular use would help them keep the feel of the pitch. That's speculation on my part, so I tried to find some supporting data. In 1999 when Wakefield saw his most significant usage as a closer, his save percentage was a not too shabby 83.3%. His career save percentage is a significantly lower 73.3%, meaning when we wasn't being used in relief regularly, he didn't do as well. Now that's only Wakefield as a closer, which is a narrow view and a small sample so it's by no means definitive, but at least it supports my speculation. And Hoyt Wilhelm had a long successful career as a reliever, so there's that too.
Adrian's Dome said:
I seem to remember reading in Ball Four that Bouton disliked relieving as a knuckleballer because he needed a long warmup to get the feel of the pitch (can anybody else confirm that? It's been a long time). I don't know if that's true of all knuckleballers, though.
EDIT: phenweigh has a good point, though, about the inconsistency factor being much less disruptive in a relief role.
Rudy Pemberton said:
It would depend on the role, right? I don't think anybody is advocating using Wright as a closer.
Rudy Pemberton said:
Less disruptive, yes, though perhaps more immediately damaging.
We're talking here about a train-wreck performance, the kind of thing where the guy comes out and walks the first three guys and then gives up a double and a home run...boom, 5 runs. In that kind of situation your chances of winning that day's game may be slightly less torpedoed if it happens to a starter than a reliever--but because of the bullpen domino effects that come from having to replace a starter in the first few innings, your chances of winning the next three-four games take a more significant hit if it happens to the starter. That's what I meant by "disruptive".
Savin Hillbilly said:
I recall Bouton's biggest objection to relieving being the difficulty of catching the pitch made it a poor one to bring into the game with runners on (see Varitek's nightmare in Game 5 2004).
Bouton did feel he needed to throw often to maintain the feel of the knuckler, but that didn't necessarily mean it took him a long time to warm up. He preferred to throw in the pen even when he wasn't warming to enter the game, and where he ran into problems was a) getting someone to catch him and b) the manager and pitching coach thinking he was throwing too much and siding with the catchers who didn't want to catch him.
Adrian's Dome said:
Oh. It's just one of my pet peeves. I suspect it's mostly a perception thing.
A few years ago, I did some research on Wakefield (you'd always hear those same inconsistent arguments about him) and the result was he wasn't particularly inconsistent when compared to similar quality non-knuckleball pitchers... he was right in the middle. I remember making a post about it in the MLB forum. I'll see if I can drag it up.
BoredViewer said:
I wonder about this too. The idea that kuckleballers are more inconsistent than a similarly talented non-knuckleballers seems like it has the potential to be one of those hoary old baseball cliches that isn't really born out by the data. It might very well be true, but I've seen enough BS over the years to be suspicisous.
Of course, there are so few knuckleballers, and they all have different variations on the pitch such that it might be tough to generalize. It's possible knuckleballers are really all just unique snowflakes, and all have different patterns such that it would be a mistake to assume that what's true for one kuckleballer is true for another.
I'm certainly far too lazy to actually do this analysis myself, but if someone had a couple hours it would be an interesting read.
EDIT: FWIW, fangraphs has the garden variety knuckleball pitcher not giving up more home runs than the league average pitcher. So there's that.
Savin Hillbilly said:
Yes, this. And that when a starter is struggling the manager is reluctant to take him out because of the disruption. In the later innings, the manager often has two guys warming anyway, so a quick hook isn't a big deal. So the LI may be higher for one batter, but that may not be as damaging as letting the starter shit the bed for inning and a third.
Rudy Pemberton said:
Regarding the underlined, you continue to miss the point that the manager will pull an ineffective reliever faster than a starter. So the more realistic comparison is an inefective starter may bury the team in an early deep hole and burn the bullpen vs. a reliever allowing a baserunner or two.
Regarding the bolded, I looked up Wakefield's career splits on baseball-reference and he was generally better in the first inning. Here are the numbers by ERA:
1st, 3.69
2nd, 4.31
3rd, 4.34
4th, 4.94
5th, 5.21
6th, 4.47
7th, 4.55
8th, 3.48
9th, 3.35
So not only does your perception of Tim struggling early seem incorrect, I suspect the good 8th and 9th ERAs more reflect his relief abilities rather than his going late into game abilities.
Edit - spelling
For what it's worth in the "ability to relieve and variability" discussion, Wright is different style of knuckleballer than a Wakefield. Wright is much more similar to Dickey in repetoire, as they both throw a harder fourseamer (Dickey around 81-85, Wright around 84-87, Wakefield around 72-75) and a much harder, more darting knuckler (Dickey around 75-77, Wright around 74-78, with Wakefield floating in around 64-67). With a harder knuckler, one would theorectically be less subject to the whims of wind and weather, at least eliminating or reducing that source of variability.
At any rate, I think the issue of whether Wright is more variable than a non-knuckleballer is kind of marginal compared to whether he's actually a good pitcher or not. I'll take the wide variance swings of a 2.50 ERA pitcher, even in relief. A 4.50 or 5.00 ERA pitcher? Not so much. I think that's where the real questions about Wright are.
David Cameron gave some reasons for hope, noting that Wright (in a miniscule SS, perhaps so miniscule as to be irresponsible to draw conclusions from, but Z-Contact% does stabilize pretty quickly) has one of the lowest percentages of in-zone contact of any pitcher in the last two years, and that the knuckleballer "carryover/hangover" effect might actually be real (in that pitchers who follow knuckleballers seem to have better results, perhaps due to the contrast in pitching styles). The "carryover" effect likely isn't that big compared to the dfference between a good ERA and a bad ERA, though.
At any rate, I think the issue of whether Wright is more variable than a non-knuckleballer is kind of marginal compared to whether he's actually a good pitcher or not. I'll take the wide variance swings of a 2.50 ERA pitcher, even in relief. A 4.50 or 5.00 ERA pitcher? Not so much. I think that's where the real questions about Wright are.
David Cameron gave some reasons for hope, noting that Wright (in a miniscule SS, perhaps so miniscule as to be irresponsible to draw conclusions from, but Z-Contact% does stabilize pretty quickly) has one of the lowest percentages of in-zone contact of any pitcher in the last two years, and that the knuckleballer "carryover/hangover" effect might actually be real (in that pitchers who follow knuckleballers seem to have better results, perhaps due to the contrast in pitching styles). The "carryover" effect likely isn't that big compared to the dfference between a good ERA and a bad ERA, though.
My initial thought was similar to the OP, but then I realized it is largely informed by two psychological biases:
1) My opinion of knucklers was almost entirely driven by the Tim Wakefield experience, i.e., a sample size of 1.
2) Knucklers often give the impression of more volatility just based on the eye test. When they're going bad it looks like they are just serving up batting practice & hitters are mashing; or if they're wild they're walking guys on 4 pitches. When they're going good, they make hitters look so foolish. Also, they can go on streaks of dominance / futility for weeks or months at a time.
Basically, I'd like to see more data on knuckleballer volatility (or on Wright's streakiness in the minors).
But my gut has been that in a 5th starter role on a team with a real "ace" the knuckler will be big upside without much downside. They'll either be awesome, in which case you've hit the 5th starter lottery. Or, if they're terrible they won't be much worse than a typical 5th starter & won't wear out the bullpen too bad b/c can use the swingman (e.g., Workman) as a piggyback starter and have the stopper ready to go the next game. We don't have a stopper, so maybe that changes the calculus somewhat.
Predictability seems to be more important for relievers than starters. A consistently good reliever should be in the highest leverage situations. The worst reliever is the mopup guy in blow outs. If knuckleballers are indeed prone to extreme streakiness then either: you use them in high leverage situations & at some point in the season they will lose you a bunch of games; or you use them in low leverage situations & at some point you will be wasting periods of brilliance.
1) My opinion of knucklers was almost entirely driven by the Tim Wakefield experience, i.e., a sample size of 1.
2) Knucklers often give the impression of more volatility just based on the eye test. When they're going bad it looks like they are just serving up batting practice & hitters are mashing; or if they're wild they're walking guys on 4 pitches. When they're going good, they make hitters look so foolish. Also, they can go on streaks of dominance / futility for weeks or months at a time.
Basically, I'd like to see more data on knuckleballer volatility (or on Wright's streakiness in the minors).
But my gut has been that in a 5th starter role on a team with a real "ace" the knuckler will be big upside without much downside. They'll either be awesome, in which case you've hit the 5th starter lottery. Or, if they're terrible they won't be much worse than a typical 5th starter & won't wear out the bullpen too bad b/c can use the swingman (e.g., Workman) as a piggyback starter and have the stopper ready to go the next game. We don't have a stopper, so maybe that changes the calculus somewhat.
Predictability seems to be more important for relievers than starters. A consistently good reliever should be in the highest leverage situations. The worst reliever is the mopup guy in blow outs. If knuckleballers are indeed prone to extreme streakiness then either: you use them in high leverage situations & at some point in the season they will lose you a bunch of games; or you use them in low leverage situations & at some point you will be wasting periods of brilliance.
There is much discussion above that seems to see Wright in a 7th or 8th inning role, but I see no scenario where that happens. He'll be that mop up guy that gives you 4 plus after a bad start, or injury; and he'll be used situational in the 5th and 6th innings. IMO. in that role there is a lot more room for optimism, than trying to fit him into high leverage innings at the end of games.
Doesn't the wind direction have an effect on the knuckleball, i.e., throwing into the wind vs. throwing with the wind? Are you going to get some parks where one direction is more prevalent than the other? Some time during the day?
Below is a crude showing of Wright's 2014 AAA performances to provide some history of his "volatility," a worry that seems to underlie a fair number of the posts so far. Who knows what will happen in his future performance/volatility in the majors? But here are the Innings, Hits, Earned Runs for each of his 2014 AAA appearances:ALiveH said:
Innings pitched/ Hits allowed / Earned Runs given up
6/7/2
7/4/0
7/3/1
3/4/1
7/5/2
7/6/4
8/5/2
8/2/0
8/4/3
3.2/2/2
6/9/5
6/6/1
8/9/3
Promoted to Red Sox
He had two more appearances after being sent back down to AAA.
4.1/8/5
6/12/5
As I looked at the above, it seems that Wright in 2014 didn't have more than two bad outings in a row, and that happened twice. One of those occurred after his demotion.
EDIT: a typo.
67WasBest said:
I think with this rotation, there will be plenty of opportunities to get from the starter to late inning high leverage situations. Wright seems ideal for such a role. If he shows success in the role, the "promote" him to higher leverage situations.
charlieoscar said:
I think this is a good point and another advantage to using a knuckleballer as a reliever. If the conditions are bad for the knuckler and it's his turn to take the ball as a starter, you're kind of screwed. But as a reliever, you can probably wait for improved conditions the next day.
The single most important consideration in this discussion might be that there is documented evidence that the performance of relievers who come in after a knuckleballer has started have a significant improvement in their effectiveness over their baseline numbers. The data I reference is in the latter half of this article published this week at Fangraphs:
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/steven-wright-as-a-joe-kelly-alternative/#more-179998
The summary suggests that pitchers who relieved a knuckleball starter (I think he measured RA Dickey and Wakefield, at least) had upticks across the board in their performance metrics. The postulate is that the velocity change and the obvious difference in pitch action served to throw off the timing of the batters, at least for the rest of that particular game. I'm not suggesting that the Sox choose Wright as a potential 5th starter option to replace Kelly solely because of this tendency, but in cases where a spot start is needed, this type of information should certainly inform the decision making process. In a single game, it could be the difference.
In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a sucker for the art of knuckleball pitching, and may be willing to squint a bit too hard to discern an advantage to be gained in the employment of that breed of pitcher. Wright is the latest iteration of that fascination, and I'm just as confident in his near term future to succeed as I have been in any of the past candidates (I'm looking at you, Charlie Zink, Charlie Haeger), perhaps more so because of his dramatic improvement in control over the past 16 months (2.0 bb/9).
Why not give him a real shot?
http://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/steven-wright-as-a-joe-kelly-alternative/#more-179998
The summary suggests that pitchers who relieved a knuckleball starter (I think he measured RA Dickey and Wakefield, at least) had upticks across the board in their performance metrics. The postulate is that the velocity change and the obvious difference in pitch action served to throw off the timing of the batters, at least for the rest of that particular game. I'm not suggesting that the Sox choose Wright as a potential 5th starter option to replace Kelly solely because of this tendency, but in cases where a spot start is needed, this type of information should certainly inform the decision making process. In a single game, it could be the difference.
In the interests of full disclosure, I'm a sucker for the art of knuckleball pitching, and may be willing to squint a bit too hard to discern an advantage to be gained in the employment of that breed of pitcher. Wright is the latest iteration of that fascination, and I'm just as confident in his near term future to succeed as I have been in any of the past candidates (I'm looking at you, Charlie Zink, Charlie Haeger), perhaps more so because of his dramatic improvement in control over the past 16 months (2.0 bb/9).
Why not give him a real shot?
A headwind makes every pitch break more, not just the knuckleball. You'd probably have to move beyond physics (movement measurements) and look at hitter success to tell whether a headwind favors the knuckleballer or the traditional pitcher.phenweigh said:
A knuckleballer may be a rare sight due to mental, as opposed to physical traits. While many of the mechanisms underlying pitching are cortical in nature, the mechanism that governs the ability to throw overhand accurately doesn't require the cerebrum. A knuckleball isn't technically thrown overhand, its either pushed from the fingertips, or pushed out from the knuckles. The physical difference may be smaller than a split hair, but the mechanism that governs the ability to push an object accurately requires some parts of the cortex.Adrian's Dome said:
The difference in this mechanism may make it really difficult to throw both types of pitches well; you've got separate error-correcting mechanisms that govern both, so you can't use the information from one type to correct the other. Worse, the mechanism for error-correction with a knuckleball may require conscious awareness, which may make it harder to learn to control.
Regardless of where the mechanisms are instantiated, you can test the dissociation in error-correcting mechanisms by using prism lenses, its a fun little experiment for kids too.
I have a friend who's a Braves fan who hated it when Wake pitched against them. Said the team was screwed up with hitting for the next game at least. Would be interesting to see a study of a team's batting performance the day after facing a lot of knuckleballs.
crystalline said:
Okay...but as I understand it, the stronger the tailwind, the less erratic break there is to a knuckleball.
alwyn96 said:
Edes' article on Wright ... http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/41993/knuckleballer-wright-could-play-key-role
I thought an important takeaway was ...
"Wright throws his baseline knuckler at around 73-75 mph but throws a harder version that can touch 80 and a slower one that he’ll brake to as little as 58 mph. Wakefield said learning to vary speeds proved crucial in his own development."
The stronger the tailwind, the less break there is to curves, sliders, and fastballs too. I think it's likely the knuckle's effectiveness is impacted more by wind, but one would need to look carefully.charlieoscar said:
crystalline said:
I'm not sure if Alan Nathan still monitors the board, but I know he's done a ton of work looking at KN.
My gut tells me a *perfect* headwind would be fine for a knuckleball since it increases drag in the direction of motion*. However, a stiff wind blowing across the ball makes the trajectory harder to control directionally but also induces a preferential spin which make the flight plane more stable. There is probably something to the fact that guys like Dickey and Wakefield prefer to pitch in low-wind conditions (in fact, Dickey has gotten the Jays to close the Skydome roof on nice days if they are windy enough).
*The more I think about it, too strong headwind could be also be problematic for a KNer. Here, if the balls trajectory gets too displaced from the expected parabola (between the pitcher and glove), the drag will not be aligned with the ball's flight path and may also "stabilize" the movement by inducing rotation in a particular direction.
What Wakefield and Dickey prefer is probably what we should rely on.
On the physics side however:
Players can adjust the ball's location to compensate for consistent wind. Most wind fluctuates though and is at least somewhat gusty.
So there are two effects:
1. Wind gusts can change the ball's location - they add variability in position, which is bad as pitchers want control over their spots. (Applies to knuckle and traditional)
2. Any consistent wind changes the ball's break. Headwinds increase the break because they strengthen the effect of aerodynamic forces. Traditional breaking pitches break more, but do so consistently more. The knuckle also breaks more, but this increases position variability because the knuckle's break is in a random direction.
So wind makes it harder to keep the knuckle near/in the zone, making the pitcher's life harder.
Wind has a similar effect at all points on the ball so doesn't create spin.
On the physics side however:
Players can adjust the ball's location to compensate for consistent wind. Most wind fluctuates though and is at least somewhat gusty.
So there are two effects:
1. Wind gusts can change the ball's location - they add variability in position, which is bad as pitchers want control over their spots. (Applies to knuckle and traditional)
2. Any consistent wind changes the ball's break. Headwinds increase the break because they strengthen the effect of aerodynamic forces. Traditional breaking pitches break more, but do so consistently more. The knuckle also breaks more, but this increases position variability because the knuckle's break is in a random direction.
So wind makes it harder to keep the knuckle near/in the zone, making the pitcher's life harder.
Wind has a similar effect at all points on the ball so doesn't create spin.
czar said:
He has a bunch of his research on the interweb here: http://baseball.physics.illinois.edu/knuckleball.html
W.r.t wind, here is an article about KN from 2004 - http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/17/project-knuckleball. Consensus seems to be wind in the face of the pitcher is good; wind from behind is not good; and central AC can really help.
crystalline said:
I don't think the bolded is necessarily true. If you have a perpendicular wind (let's say, blowing from 3rd to 1st) and you throw a ball towards home plate, there may not be a Newtonian torque, but the laminar/turbulent separation of the flow (therefore pressure on surface) is not equivalent from front to back so you'd have some level of induced rotation due to a differential pressure force (again, on the surface, this time left-to-right from the side view) which would be proportional to the speed of the wind, no?
I guess I find it hard to believe that if I throw a baseball towards home plate with no spin in the middle of a hurricane that the ball would continue to not rotate.
This might not matter greatly in the realm of what weather conditions KNers throw in, but even a couple extra revolutions between the mound/plate can dramatically increase the stability of the flight path.
Of course, I haven't taken physics in 10 years, so YMMV (or I guess, MMMV).
alwyn96 said:
My understanding from looking at PitchFX for both Dickey and Wright last year is that Dickey's KN is considerably harder - over 80 mph. Wright's is not that nasty, but as noted his does sit in the 70s, which is harder than Wake's high 60s was. His slow KN is high 50s, low 60s. He doesn't throw many of those, maybe averaging 3 or 4 per game, iirc.
Two things that I want to mention:
- Wake seemed to have the tendency, -- and this seemed much more attacehd to him than to a more traditional SP, even one of similar skill level (i.e. OPS+) -- the tendency to have a single bad inning in the midst of a few good ones. Admittedly, this may be confirmation bias, but it seemed like, unlike most pitchers, that Wake coudl pitch 4 innings of 1-run ball, then completely lose it for the 5th (for example), only to come back and pitch strong in the 6th and 7th. This seemed different to a traditional pitcher who would rarely come back to pitch well once things shit the bed.
- This is more of a question: Many people think of Wake as "rubber-armed" which most people equate to bing a knuckle-baller. But I wonder if maybe the rubber-arm-ness came more from Wake's limited speed on either the KN or the FB. Are knuckleballers always considered rubber-armed?
Saints Rest said:
1. I agree - in fact, IIRC this was something Francona (and probably his predecessors) used to mention as a difficulty in evaluating Wakefield's performance in a given start. He seemed to have the ability to "fix" whatever it was that caused the blowup. The effect of this was that Tito would give Wakefield a longer leash. This makes a lot of sense as it's a pitch that depends on very precise mechanics.
2. "Rubber Armed" knuckleball pitchers has always been common perception - and one that Wakefield used to refute all the time. No idea if this was the case with Charlie Hough or the Niekros or other famous KB pitchers.
If a guy sees heat in his first 2 AB's, might it be harder to gauge than if you saw it from the start of the game? What if you get him for one AB and have to face heat again? I'm no expert, but I gotta think it going to fuck with some guys in a situation like that.
You're right, I meant to delete that last sentence. The effect of wind on rotation is small but it might be enough to screw up a knuckleball. An answer is probably empirical.czar said:
Total wild guess from me: any induced rotation is due to small gusting or wind fluctuations at the centimeter scale. If I were an actual physicist I'd say something about symmetry-breaking here. You could explore this by hitting a beach ball, or plastic whiffle softball, straight up in the wind and seeing if the wind (as opposed to the contact) imparted spin.
I'll try, but I remember this part from a long time ago. Please correct me if I got something wrong.crystalline said:
It was part of my graduate school systems neuroscience class, taught by Tom Thatch (zl). One of our classes involved replicating the study and extending it by seeing if underhanded throws adapt (they don't in the same way, suggesting a different mechanism).
I also sort of overspoke. You can control most error-correction through top-down cortical mechanisms (including overhand throws), but such control may interfere with other mechanisms.
You can probably find it in a textbook, but it will take me some time to dig up the references, which is why I encouraged others to try the prism glasses.
Here's one, that shows how adaptation to overhand throws is limited and may relate to coordination between the eyes, trunk, and arm movements.
Here's one that shows how lesions to cerebellar areas containing climbing fibers impair error-correction for overhand throws.
Here's one that reviews the neuroscience literature on reaching movements and posterior parietal cortex.
There's an interesting discussion in the literature as to whether over-practiced overhand throwing (e.g. pitchers) leads to reduced sources of error for adaptation. If so, the timing of the release is the one most affected in over-practiced overhand throwing.
In any case, adaptation (i.e. compensation) to exogenous factors (e.g. wind) may be a different mental process for a knuckleball than a fastball.
EDITS for links, as I can find them.
Per Edes http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/42324/victorino-to-hit-only-right-handed
"Knuckleballer Steven Wright will draw the start against the Phillies—he is a certain call-up if the Sox need another starting pitcher."
"Knuckleballer Steven Wright will draw the start against the Phillies—he is a certain call-up if the Sox need another starting pitcher."
Was it Mike Flanagan who said that starters and relievers should have different personalities - starters should feel responsible for their performance, but relievers have to be able to deny responsibility when they fail, and move on with confidence? By that reasoning, knuckleballers might be well-suited to relief (or to a swing role) because they can readily ascribe failures to bad luck, such as adverse air movement.
Without checking the stats on other famous knuckelball pitchers, Wilbur Wood was certainaly as strong an argument as you could make that these pitchers are rubber armed. Some of his amazing rubber arm feats include pitching 376 innings one year; over 300 innings 4 years in a row; and once pitching both ends of a doouble header. He also apparently had a strong area connection, hailing from Belmont and starting his career with the Red SoxBCsMightyJoeYoung said:
At any rate, it wouldn't surprise me if Wright ends up as a key member of the Sox rotation this year
Wilbur Wood was a fastball (not especially great), curveball pitcher who threw an occasional knuckleball when he signed. After about seven years of not really getting anywhere as a pro he came under the tutelage of Hoyt Wilhelm, who him to throw the knuckler all the time or not at all.
I think what is seen as "rubber-armness" from days gone stems from the differences in pitching philosophies then and now. Today, most pitchers throw as hard as they can and also throw pitches that put more strain on arms than in earlier days. Pitchers saved their "real" heat for times when they absolutely needed it. The top of the strike zone was much higher, giving pitchers more room to play with hitters. Pitches were allowed to brush hitters back; today, all the batters wear body armor and pitchers get ejected more quickly if there is a hint that they threw at the batter. The bullpen concept was very different: today, pitchers come in to throw 97+; the "closer" for the 1950 Red Sox, Ellis Kinder, made 23 starts.
Finally, when was the last time you saw kids playing catch or roll-a-bat or having a pick-up game?
I think what is seen as "rubber-armness" from days gone stems from the differences in pitching philosophies then and now. Today, most pitchers throw as hard as they can and also throw pitches that put more strain on arms than in earlier days. Pitchers saved their "real" heat for times when they absolutely needed it. The top of the strike zone was much higher, giving pitchers more room to play with hitters. Pitches were allowed to brush hitters back; today, all the batters wear body armor and pitchers get ejected more quickly if there is a hint that they threw at the batter. The bullpen concept was very different: today, pitchers come in to throw 97+; the "closer" for the 1950 Red Sox, Ellis Kinder, made 23 starts.
Finally, when was the last time you saw kids playing catch or roll-a-bat or having a pick-up game?
Actually, the idea that knuckles are "rubber armed" is an explicit acknowledgement that the pitch takes less effort to throw. Bouton compared it to having a catch in the backyard. (Note: he thew a "hard" knuckler in the high70s.)
Wakefield is the only KB pitcher I have ever heard of who did not agree that throwing a KB was far less taxing than other pitches.
Wakefield is the only KB pitcher I have ever heard of who did not agree that throwing a KB was far less taxing than other pitches.
I wonder if Wake's opinion comes from the fact he was a converted infielder. How much experience did he have throwing multiple innings of non-knuckleballs, as opposed to someone like Wood who converted to the knuckleball after being a traditional fastball pitcher.
Takeaway from Edes: http://espn.go.com/blog/boston/red-sox/post/_/id/42374/hanley-ramirez-hits-first-hr-of-spring
"The knuckleballer, Steven Wright, went four scoreless innings, giving up a couple hits and a couple walks. He is making a solid case for being the first pitcher the Sox summon from Pawtucket if they need a starter, although one scout in attendance Sunday said he thought Wright wasn't as effective after his first 35-40 pitches and might prove more useful in long relief. That’s not how the Sox see him at this stage; Wright said he just wants to help in any way he can."
"The knuckleballer, Steven Wright, went four scoreless innings, giving up a couple hits and a couple walks. He is making a solid case for being the first pitcher the Sox summon from Pawtucket if they need a starter, although one scout in attendance Sunday said he thought Wright wasn't as effective after his first 35-40 pitches and might prove more useful in long relief. That’s not how the Sox see him at this stage; Wright said he just wants to help in any way he can."
joe dokes said:
He also was a bit prickly about how he should be used and regarded, so he had motivation to minimize his "freakishness" in relation to other hurlers.